U.S. jobless rate drops to 7.4 percent…for whatever that’s worth

I always liked the scene in “The Paper” when Michael Keaton’s character, offered a chance to cover the world at the New York Timesesque newspaper, turned it down by saying, “I don’t (bleeping) live in the (bleeping) world; I live in (bleeping) New York City.”

I’d post the YouTube clip, but it is decidedly not safe for work. Or, for that matter, home.

Similarly, we don’t live in the U.S.; we live in New Jersey. It’s a place where Sandy altered the economy. It derailed this summer’s tourism season. But it also brought billions of federal aid into the state – which should show up in the economy any day now.

Still, a growing national economy can’t hurt. So I took a look at the unemployment data for July that was released this morning. And it showed the economy adding jobs, but not nearly enough.

The sequester is a drag. And Congress sounds ready to shut everything down with another budget fight. Don’t they get tired of fighting all the time? It has to be exhausting.

Anyway, the economy in July added 162,000 jobs – 161,000 in the private sector, 1,000 in the public sector. And the unemployment rate fell from 7.6 percent to 7.4 percent.

The government lowered the number of jobs it initially thought were added in both May and June. So the past three months, the U.S. has added on average 175,000 jobs.

Using back-of-the-napkin math, New Jersey should have added about 4,860 jobs in July. We’ll know for sure when the state releases its (bleeping) figures on Aug. 15.

Update: Economist Joel Naroff’s take: The report “is not bad but hardly strong enough to make the argument the economy is in good shape.”

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About Michael Diamond

Michael L. Diamond is a business writer at the Asbury Park Press, covering workforce and the economy. He worked at newspapers in Pennsylvania and California before joining the Press in 1999.

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Michael DiamondMichael L. Diamond is a business writer at the Asbury Park Press, covering workforce and the economy. He worked at newspapers in Pennsylvania and California before joining the Press in 1999.E-mail Michael